


People Who Love Him for Him

by BastardSonOfDay (Diana_Raven)



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Drinking, Drunken Confessions, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, a little bashing, cuz im mad, feyre archeron bashing, no editing we die like men, rhysand bashing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:07:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23600554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diana_Raven/pseuds/BastardSonOfDay
Summary: From a prompt on tumblrLucien comes home depressed and stumbling drunk after a shitty meeting with Feyre and Elain on the Solstice, but he has people who care about him to make new traditions with.
Relationships: Band of Exiles - Relationship, Lucien Vanserra & Jurian, Lucien Vanserra & Vassa, Lucien Vanserra & Vassa & Jurian
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22





	People Who Love Him for Him

**Author's Note:**

> a prompt from vallirenwrites/acourtofliarsandexiles on tumblr
> 
> "If you're still taking fic requests, I'd love to see your take on the band of exiles dynamic--maybe them spending solstice together in ACOFAS?"

“Are you drunk?” Jurian asked, eyes narrowed as Lucien stumbled into his arms.

What a sorry state Lucien was in. Lucien snorted. Jurian’s arms were warm and strong. He smelled of apples and cardamon. Flavors of Lucien’s home.

His first home. Before he was run out, and then there had been his second home, and then the place he’d stayed for a little bit that one might call his third. But none of them had really been home, not really. Not since Jes had died, but with Jurian and Vassa, two people displaced from their homes and times… perhaps he might have one.

And now they were seeing him drunk and depressed. Lucien giggled against Jurian’s chest. He’d better close off his heart now before they decided he wasn’t good enough for them either. “I like you a lot,” his mouth mumbled before he could stop it. Fuck, screwed it up already.

“Ohhhkay… _Vassa_? _A little help here_?” Jurian shouted over his shoulder. He stumbled under Lucien’s weight.

“ _What_?” Vassa called as she thudded down the stairs to the entrance of their manor. Vassa never walked, she always stomped. Everywhere she went, you always knew, no matter how happy or sad she was. Lucien loved that about her. How frankly honest she was. It was such a nice reprieve from all the lies. Vassa appeared in a whirl of bright red fabric. She always appeared like a cyclone, blurring everything in her path. A haze of red, a gorgeous cleansing red that burned every pain of Amarantha from Lucien’s mind. Every tiny feeling of hatred he felt when he looked at himself in the mirror, watching those strands of red fall into his gaze. “What fucking happened?”

He loved them so much, it was going to hurt when they kicked him out.

“You’re so nice…” Lucien mumbled to Jurian. Because he was. Now that he wasn’t still the reason Lucien was being tortured for years. He patted Jurian’s face, smiling. “And you have soft skin… and warm...”

“ _Vassa_!” Jurian shouted again. Vassa stormed down the steps.

Lucien winced. “Why’re you so loud?” he grumbled.

“What the _fuck_ , Lucien?” Vassa snarled. Heh, he liked when she was mad. She was fun when she was fiery. Her swearing up a storm made him grin.

“Vassa! You’re so mean! Thank you!”

Vassa coughed and waved a hand in front of her face. She swore and Lucien smiled. “Did he drink a distillery?”

“No,” Lucien said defensively before thinking about it for a moment. Did it count? “Well,” Lucien burped. “ _Excuuse_ me. I drank Tammy’s wine cellar. Very di- _hic_!-different.”

Jurian rolled his eyes. “So, your meeting at the Night Court didn’t go well?”

“Of course it went well! That’s why I’m fucking _wasted_ and all _alone_.” Lucien snorted. He should just clean his things out now, after Tamlin dropped them all over the fucking threshold.

“You’re not alone,” Vassa snapped. She shifted her weight, and hiked Lucien up on her shoulder. “The couch.” Vassa said to Jurian. Jurian nodded and together they got over to couch and huffed as they dropped Lucien onto the couch. “Did you at least save any for us?” Vassa grumbled.

Lucien sighed sadly. “No, all gone.”

Jurian snorted and Vassa kicked him. “What happened, Lucien?”

“You know, they want me to _work_ for them?” Lucien slurred, spitting at he did.

“You already _do_ work for the Night Court.”

“That’s what _I_ said! But, _noooo_ Lucien, doesn’t _count_ Lucien, why don’t you give up on _Elain_ Lucien? Where have you _been_ , Lucien? Fucking-” Lucien let out a few swear words he’d learned from Vassa.

Jurian leaned over Lucien’s head and whispered to Vassa, “you’re a terrible influence,” to which Vassa grinned.

“After _all_ I’ve done for them! Sometimes I can’t tell if they _want_ me to mate Elain or not! I’m _giving_ her space. I _have_ an apartment. I spend a fourth of my time in the gods-damned Night Court. I’m fucking _sorry_ I’m busy making sure my best-” Lucien’s voice cut off before he could start crying. Something caught in his throat and he coughed until he could breathe again without tears streaming down his face.

“Hey, Lucien, hey. Look at me, everything’s going to be okay. They’re pricks, okay? But we’re here for you.” Vassa’s voice was low but riddled with sharp consonants and tense vowels. Lucien kept her hands intertwined with his. Her hands were so soft. With her curse she was a prize, a toy. She spent all day sleeping and doing nothing, and her hands had become soft for it. Her whole body had gone soft. Lucien closed his eyes and smelled her. She smelled like petrichor and smoke. Mother above he loved that smell.

When the hammer fell, where would he go? Who would he go to? Maybe Kallias. Kallias liked him enough, Lucien supposed. He’d have to find someone who liked him enough to let him stay one day.

“Please don’t send me away,” Lucien whispered. Tears welled up behind his eyes.

“Hey, hey. Never! Okay?” Vassa whispered back, holding him close. Tears dripped down Lucien’s face. She brushed them away with her beautiful soft hands. Everything beautiful that Lucien ever had always disappeared, was stolen, burned away.

Jurian was on his other side, kissing his forehead. “Band of Exiles, right? Together forever, even when no one else wants us.”

“I just want… I want someone who wants me because they like me,” Lucien mumbled through his tears.

“I can’t have this conversation sober,” Vassa snapped. She stood, turned in her flurry of skirts, pressed a peck to Lucien’s cheek and promised: “I’ll be right back,” before going off in search of some booze.

“So,” Jurian said softly as he rubbed Lucien’s back. Once Lucien got all of his tears out, Vassa had returned with more to drink. “Didn’t go well?”

“Tamlin hates me, but what’s new about that?” Lucien said. Vassa tossed a bottle to Jurian and upended hers into her mouth as they listened. Lucien wiped at his nose. A good cry always did him some good. “Its fucking because of Rhys. The asshole. He _went_ to Tamlin. Fucking lit a spark, fucked with his pride, you know? Do they understand what he is? What he could do?” Lucien rubbed at his face tiredly. “With him not on the Spring throne, the Mortal Lands will be open to anyone. Tamlin is the second most powerful fucking High Lord in all of Prythian, even if he’s suicidal.” Lucien took the bottle from Jurian’s hands (because Vassa would have bitten off his if he’d tried). “And they fucking want him dead. They’ll need him.”

“They’ll need you, too,” Jurian said.

“No they won’t. They have Az-”

“And who’s telling Azriel about the discontent in the Mortal Lands?” Vassa snarled, managing not to slip a single ‘fuck’ into her sentences.

“Yeah, well. Not fucking enough, apparently.”

“Or didn’t you know?” Jurian said sarcastically, “you owe everything to Feyre Archeron.”

“Ex-fucking-actly.” Lucien rolled his eyes, leaning more into Jurian’s side. He closed them. “I’m sorry, this isn’t festive,” he mumbled.

“Hey, it’s your holiday, love,” Vassa said, stretching.

“Why don’t we make a new tradition, huh? We’re practically our own… what do you call them, Lucien? Court? We’re practically our own Court these days, let’s give ourselves our own tradition.” Jurian said, passing his bottle to Vassa when she snapped her fingers.

“Of what?” Lucien asked, taking another swing. “Getting absolutely fucking hammered?”

“Not a bad fucking tradition to me,” Vassa mumbled. “’Sides, as long as I’m cursed, getting drunk, setting things on fire, and looking pretty is about all I can do.”

“What a trio we make,” Jurian said.

Lucien burbled out a laugh. “I don’t know you two. I like getting drunk.”

Jurian rolled his eyes. “Oh, is this the company I’ve fallen into?” He said to the skies. Then, before Lucien could take it the wrong way he added, “Not that it isn’t lovely.”

Vassa laughed. “That’s what everyone says about us. Lovely.”

“Lovely,” Lucien agreed, snickering.

“The Lovely Band of fucking Exiles,” Jurian said.   
They clinked bottles.

“Lucien?” Vassa asked.

“Yeah?” Lucien asked. Their voices like honey in his ears.

“Please don’t leave us,” Jurian whispered.

“Never.” Lucien’s tongue felt heavy. He yawned. “Never, ever, ever.”

Lucien must have been drunk. Wasted. Shnockered. He hadn’t believed that anyone would want him to stay, not in years. So, he had to have not heard them correctly when they whispered, their breaths thick with alcohol, tickling the little hairs on his neck: “Lucien, we love you.”

He loved them too. Their bodies were warm, and he could feel himself drifting off to sleep. His hold on wakefulness tenuous. His last coherent thought before disappearing into the nothingness of sleep, was that despite all of the shitty things he’d gone through in the past two days, between Spring Court and Night Court, there was nowhere he’d rather be than between two people who loved him for him, who wanted him to stay. He was warm, loved, and asleep. Maybe not such a bad new tradition, after all.


End file.
